


Given and Taken

by nagi_schwarz



Series: Comment Fic 2017 [33]
Category: Stargate Atlantis
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-17
Updated: 2017-03-17
Packaged: 2018-10-06 15:00:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10337170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nagi_schwarz/pseuds/nagi_schwarz
Summary: Written for the comment_fic prompt: "Stargate Atlantis, Rodney McKay, finding a full ZPM…and getting to keep it."Queen Harmony wishes to honor Dr. McKay for sharing the secrets of the universe.





	

“This is going to be good,” Lorne murmured. He was standing beside Chuck at the control console, ostensibly waiting for a report from John, who was babysitting some brand new JAG officers offworld in negotiations.  
  
“What makes you say that?” Rodney was hovering behind Amelia, checking some radio signal readings she was recording for him.  
  
“Incoming transmission,” Chuck said. “Receiving Colonel Sheppard’s IDC.”  
  
“Open a channel,” Lorne instructed.  
  
“Atlantis, this is Sheppard, do you read?”  
  
“Read you loud and clear, sir,” Lorne said. “How are things on Larris with Queen Harmony?”  
  
John cleared his throat. “Her Royal Majesty has requested Dr. McKay’s presence.”   
  
Ah. The use of titles meant he wasn’t alone.  
  
Rodney frowned. “Why?”  
  
“She wishes to throw a banquet in your honor after you so kindly shared the secrets of the universe with her,” John said.  
  
“Secrets of the universe?” Amelia twisted around to frown at Rodney, disapproving. “She’s a little girl!”  
  
At first, Rodney was confused, but then he understood the innuendo in John’s tone. “What - no! I gave her an old physics book. A children’s book, with pictures, because she doesn’t read English.”  
  
“Do you need Dr. McKay right away, sir, or does he have some time to spruce up?” Lorne asked. He was smirking, the bastard, but sounded perfectly innocent.  
  
“Oh, he has time to spruce up,” John said. “Spruce him up good, Major. Send him through in a couple of hours. Sheppard out.”  
  
And the gate shut down.  
  
Rodney gaped at the empty stargate. “It does _not_ take me two hours to spruce up!”  
  
“You’re going to be in the presence of royalty, Doc,” Lorne said. “Pretty sure Dr. Ayala in archives gives out a mean manicure. And Sgt. Ramirez is pretty handy with a straight razor if you need a good, close shave.” He was still smirking, and he still sounded perfectly innocent.  
  
Rodney wanted to hit him, but he’d probably break his own hand trying. “I’m going to take a shower and change into a clean uniform.”  
  
“Why not that one dark suit? With the plum shirt and matching tie. Makes your eyes really blue,” Lorne said.  
  
Rodney paused, considering, and then he narrowed his eyes at Lorne. “How do you know about that suit? And since when do you notice what makes my eyes really blue?”  
  
“I’m an artist and a soldier. I’m observant.” But Lorne was radiating a disturbing level of smugness.  
  
Rodney huffed and turned away. “Send me those results,” he hollered over his shoulder to Amelia.  
  
Two hours later, he was standing in the gate room, wearing the suit Lorne had suggested, freshly-showered and clean-shaven, hair combed down. Chuck dialed the gate, confirmed John was waiting on the other side, and Rodney stepped through, unescorted.  
  
To the clearing in front of the gate on Larris, where John, JAG officers in dress blues, Marines in offworld uniforms, and an array of local Larris palace guards were waiting.  
  
And Queen Harmony herself, who’d gotten much taller and curvier than Rodney remembered her being. She was still a child, though. Like Madison. And that imperious bossiness hadn’t declined one iota. She lifted her chin and greeted Rodney with flowery condescension, stepped up to him, and held out her arm.  
  
Right. He was supposed to escort her. Apart from one etiquette dinner that his grandmother had foisted on him when he was sixteen, he really hadn’t had any occasion to link arms with a female ever.  
  
John, who’d grown up ridiculously wealthy, complete with nannies, tutors, a pony, and a suspiciously homosocial boarding school, smirked for half a second before falling into formation with the JAG officers and Marines.

John hadn’t been kidding about a banquet. It was like Rodney had fallen into a renaissance faire. Pennants hung from the windows in the village as they walked through it, and people were actually strewing flower petals along the path the little procession was taking.  
  
More pennants were flying high along the castle wall.  
  
And the throne room was packed with nobles in ridiculous finery. Flora looked quite lovely, though she attached herself to John’s side with undignified eagerness.  
  
Harmony ascended her throne and sank into it with a rustle of her skirts. Rodney, who’d been dragged along with her, went to retreat back to the safety of the Marines, but her grip on his wrist was like a steel claw, implacable.  
  
What followed was a speech about the long and prosperous relationship between Larris and Atlantis, the sharing of knowledge and technology, bountiful trade, and the _special relationship_ between Queen Harmony and the brave and valorous Dr. Rodney McKay. Thanks to Dr. McKay, the people of Larris were prepared to explore their own stars and space, through the wonder of physics. As a sign of Larris’s appreciation, there would be a banquet in Rodney’s honor (complete with minstrels singing a ballad about his bravery - and probably John’s cowardice, which would be entertaining).  
  
Rodney would be honored by remaining at the Queen’s right hand all evening.  
  
She wasn’t kidding about all evening, either. Harmony dragged him everywhere, managed to perform a surprising number of tasks one-handed.  
  
Through it all, Rodney kept a smile pasted on his face. He was only vaguely mollified that Harmony assigned John as his taste-tester, because his allergy to citrus was legendary. John, of course, ate half of the food before Rodney even got to it, and no one was allowed seconds before Harmony had any, and because she was a teenage girl she ate like a bird.  
  
Rodney didn’t know how Teyla did it, being nice and polite all the time (he knew how Lorne did it, because secretly that guy was laughing at everybody all the time), and he would gladly consign Larris to the technological stone age if it meant never having to endure this embarrassment again.  
  
More than one person - including some Atlantis personnel - commented on how fine Rodney’s suit looked, how the color of his shirt and tie brought out the color of his eyes, and Rodney strongly suspected Lorne’s hand in the matter, but he had no proof.  
  
What Harmony considered an honor, Rodney considered an indignity. After the eating, there was dancing to the ballad by the minstrel (and, okay, hearing in song about John’s cowardice was pretty good), then sitting and holding Harmony’s hand while the minstrel sang some more, and didn’t Harmony have an early bedtime? She was a kid, right? Teenagers needed almost as much sleep as babies, didn’t they? Only Rodney hadn’t. His adolescence had been one long caffeine-fueled, hormone-battered research project. He’d probably have bled coffee when he was sixteen.  
  
Rodney kept getting lost in his thoughts and hoping to hell no one was taking pictures or going to paint more pictures of the way Harmony clung to his arm like a debutante at her first ball, and then he realized.  
  
Just about all the party-goers were gone. Somehow between the endless rounds of toasts, dancing, and singing, the nobles in their finery had drifted away. Now it was just John, Rodney, Harmony, Flora, and a handful of guards and Marines, who were tucked respectfully into the shadows and corners.  
  
“Rodney,” Harmony said, “we cannot thank you enough for your contributions to our kingdom. As a token of our esteem -”  
  
“Please, no more,” Rodney begged.  
  
Harmony’s grip on his wrist tightened, and damn, had she been taking lessons from Ronon?   
  
“We insist,” she said, and he suspected she meant that in the royal sense. Then she lifted her chin, and a couple of guards approached, bearing a sizeable box.  
  
Rodney eyed it. Was it ticking?  
  
“Open it,” Harmony said, and let go of his wrist.

So Rodney flipped it open and -   
  
A ZPM. Glowing.  
  
“Is it -?” he asked, looking up at John.  
  
John handed him a scanner.  
  
Rodney held it toward the ZPM.  
  
Fully charged.  
  
“Do we - do we get to keep it?” Rodney asked, soft and awed.  
  
Harmony looked pleased. “Yes, it is our gift to you.”  
  
“It’s a fully charged ZPM,” Rodney said. He cradled the box to his chest and gazed down at the ZPM nestled inside. “This is perfect.”  
  
John cleared his throat. “What do you say to the Queen, Rodney?”  
  
Rodney gazed at her for a long time. She’d read every physics book he’d sent her, and even the ones he and Kusanagi had thrown together so she could better understand the Ancient tech on the planet at the so-called shrine of the Ancestors. She understood just what this meant, didn’t she?  
  
So he said, “Thank you,” and leaned in and kissed her on the cheek, and for one moment, the universe was perfect.  
  
Best day ever.


End file.
